The ship swung to her moorings, and the light from the port, diffused and golden, swung across the gloom, reaching to the girl. Poor child, even in life she had never belonged down there in that dreadful place, among that crowd of older women who huddled from her, suspicious, almost animal-like, watching not her but us. She should never have been in that frightful travelling prison, delivering her to a harem in Zanzibar, to a husband she had never seen, in an island far from her home.

From the beginnings of the novel in the 17th century until the present day, the sea has provided a compelling backdrop for storytelling. Be they tales of adventure and derring-do, romance, philosophy, historical, political or geographical drama, the allure of the sea is strong.

Many of those isolated hamlets are most easily accessible by boat rather than car, so in 1959, a group of librarians secured government funding to launch a waterborne library service with a special emphasis on children’s literature.

The SWS library keeps growing. But unfortunately the shelf space doesn’t! It’s a torment trying to cull… but editing your life frequently and ruthlessly, for me at least, brings much needed clarity.

Lewis was born in England, of a Welsh-Irish family, and brought up in New Zealand and Rarotonga, where his unconventional father sent him to the Polynesian school - for ever after he was really a Polynesian under the skin. He always called himself a New Zealander.